Well, this seems to be the place to brag about first LDs, so I guess I’ll finally post my own! (I’ve been lucid before, but only very briefly and/or with extremely limited control and senses. This is the first time I’ve had any real control or had what more experienced dreamers consider the “typical” lucid dream [you know, really vivid, more than minimal control, etc].)
So it was early-ish in the morning, I think around 6 or so, and I was in this sort of half-awake state where I was conscious of being in bed but not really aware of the world around me. I decided now was as good a time as ever to try the FILD technique, and when I did my first reality check I could breathe! Usually this is the point where I would wake up, but instead of trying to remind myself to keep calm (which has never worked in the past), I just laid still and didn’t do anything – just continued to breathe through my pinched nose until I was certain I wasn’t going to wake up. Then I thought to myself, when I open my eyes, I will be somewhere, and I opened my eyes.
I was standing in this gray void that had no real substance but still seemed to envelop me like mist; in the middle distance, bright flashes of color (mostly pastel pinks, yellows, and greens) wove through the grayness. I tried walking, but couldn’t get anywhere, and after a while I got sort of irritated and said “I want to be somewhere else.” It got really dark for a second and when I could see again, I was in Manhattan.
…Except…
It wasn’t. Like I knew for certain that this was Manhattan – and the style of building would put me somewhere around midtown – but it wasn’t any recognizable street or avenue. There was a huge mass of people milling around (just as it always is in the waking Manhattan) but they were indistinct and didn’t seem to want to interact with me, like they had their own business to attend to. They weren’t that interesting anyways, especially compared to the buildings.
They were massive. I mean the smallest had to be at least a thousand feet, straight up into the air. Looking up at them felt after a while like looking down from a great height.
And the sky wasn’t like the waking sky, either. It was a huge tile mosaic, mostly different shades of yellow but with a border of blue, like a massive sun. There were white windows set into the sky-ceiling, and people walking upside down on it like it was a street. Then I realized that this was because it was a street, and that I actually was looking down, and I started to fall.
It’s okay, I thought. It’s a dream. I’ll aim for one of the windows. I put my hands in front of me as if I were diving into a pool, and headed towards a window. I crashed through it and came out into this long, narrow pillared hall that looked sort of like the main concourse of Grand Central Station, except that instead of marble it too was covered – floor, walls, and ceiling – in an intricate mosaic of yellow and gold (no blue this time). It was incredibly beautiful. People were walking up and down, still shadowy and indistinct, and there were white windows in the floor and walls. I fell through the hall until a woman dressed in black and standing by one of the windows in the wall waved to me and said,
“Over here!”
I fell towards her and through the window she beckoned to. The hall I fell into looked sort of familiar, and it had yet another sun mosaic on the floor–though the walls were elaborate frescoes and the ceiling was some sort of moulding, with chandeliers and old-fashioned candelabras. There were people here, too, more distinct-looking, and all dressed in mid-to-late 18th-century clothes.
Then the woman who had waved to me appeared next to me and I realized that she was dressed in the same sort of fashion. She smiled at me – she was very pretty, with gold-blond hair piled on top of her head – and said, “welcome to the court of Louis Roi.” She said something else, and I can’t remember what exactly it was but I remember getting the impression that she’d told me her name was the Gatekeeper. Then she left.
I stood there for a second taking in the period clothes and the hall and then realized that this was the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, and that this was during the reign of Louis XV – and that I, in my pajamas and my bare feet and my being a commoner and all, stood out like a sore thumb. In fact, the people were already starting to look at me suspiciously. One man, dressed in blue-green and sitting on a marble bench, gave me a long look like he wanted to talk to me, and his face was much more defined and distinct than any of the others, but I (for some reason; my control was not entirely complete) ignored him.
I headed up a short flight of stairs and ended up in what looked like an indoor garden: a cool, dimly-lit room with flagstone floor. Then I realized what I thought were trees were actually large pieces of driftwood covered in bright green moss, arranged artistically around the room. On the other end was another small stairway that led to a long hallway. I could still hear people looking for me, so I headed for it. To my right was that same gray void that I’d entered the dream in; to my left, a long gauzy blue-gray curtain. Behind the curtain were many square rooms, mostly parlor-type spaces, with lavish plush furnishings. I could hear voices coming from one of them and make out the figure of the lady who’d called herself the Gatekeeper. The other one was a man, and peering through the curtains, I could tell it was King Louis XV himself. If he caught me I’d be in huge trouble.
I didn’t want to make any noise, so I began to float down the hall, pulling myself hand-over-hand along the gauzy curtain. At one point, I knocked over a cup, and though it didn’t break, it hit the ground with a loud noise. Madame Gatekeeper and the King stopped talking.
“What was that?” King Louis said after a moment.
“It came from over there,” said Madame Gatekeeper, and pointed in the opposite direction.
Their conversation resumed. I carried on. I reached the end of the hallway and found nothing but a dead end. The Lady showed up beside me and pointed to the ceiling, as if it were a way out. (No mosaics this time–just gray plaster.) Then, floating at the end of the hall, I remembered something from my waking life:
“Can I talk to Valentin?” I asked.
“Your dream guide?” said Madame Gatekeeper. “Yes.”
She pushed open the ceiling and we climbed through, coming out on the top of a brick building back in the 21st century. Valentin was standing there in a heavy coat like a peacoat or overcoat, looking out over a parking lot or whatever flat space was next to the building. We walked over to him, and he and Madame Gatekeeper spoke. They had a brief argument – though I can’t remember about what–and then the Lady left. I turned to my dream guide.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
“I’ve been here all this time,” he said.
I started to talk to him – I don’t know what I was going to say; it was part of the dream and not something I had planned – but then I realized, quite suddenly and without doubt, that I was going to wake up really soon. I hurriedly said,
“Next time I’m dreaming and am at a time when I can be lucid, will you please come to me and tell me that I’m dreaming?”
“Yeah–sure,” he said.
“Oh, thank you,” I said, and continued to thank him until I realized, again suddenly and certainly, that it was time to wake up. I stepped back, said something–either “goodbye” or “I’m waking up” – and when I opened my eyes again I was back in my bed, awake.
…haha, sorry this was really long. The length of the post is in direct correlation to my excitement 
Anyways, thanks so much to everyone here, for the existence of this site and for helping me (directly or indirectly) making my dreams – literally – a reality!
Congratulations!
Now I feel really bad because I think he